Today Edupinion begins a special multipart series on a program in Southern California for high-achieving elementary school students in grades 4 through 6. The Irvine Unified School District (IUSD) created its Alternative Program for Academically Accelerated Students (APAAS) to "benefit those students whose capacity for intellectual achievement and need for acceleration go beyond what could be provided in a GATE- [Gifted and Talented Education] clustered class."
Sounds good—at least in theory. Clearly some students are more advanced than others and can be bored in regular classrooms. Having a program that identifies such children and places them in a more challenging program with their intellectual peers over the course of several formative years is intuitively appealing.
Like programs for students with learning disabilities and other problems, APAAS can and should be viewed as an "intervention." Although it is at the opposite end of the spectrum, APAAS attempts to meet the needs of students who are not receiving an "appropriate" education in regular classrooms.
The IUSD offers six APAAS sites. For some students, the school they've attended through third grade has an APAAS program, so if they apply and get in, they do not need to switch schools. For others, the closest APAAS site—or the one they get into, since some accepted students do not get into their first- or even second-choice school—may be miles away from their old school.
Admission into the APAAS program is highly competitive, particularly for certain schools. The year my son applied, there were approximately four applicants for every spot at his school. Admission is based on previous academic performance, standardized test scores, and teacher recommendations.
Most parents prefer that their children remain at the school they've been in, assuming it's an APAAS site. Kids are familiar with the school and the other students there and won't have to adjust to an entirely new environment in fourth grade. Moreover, at least when we applied, the APAAS program was billed as being essentially the same from site to site, as any good intervention should be.
Unfortunately, such was not the case. The goals of APAAS were implemented differently, sometimes dramatically so, at each site. Turtle Rock Elementary, for example, had the most rigorous, boot camp–like APAAS; Eastshore Elementary, by contrast, implemented its APAAS program in a more age-appropriate, "fun" way.
So the first problem with this ambitious yet flawed program is its inconsistent implementation between sites. This would not necessarily even be a problem if the lack of uniformity were intentional, designed to offer parents and students an array of pedagogical choices. Unfortunately, the variability between sites is symptomatic of serious systemic shortcomings in the APAAS program. We'll take a closer look at some of these deficiencies beginning next week.
